A legend is growing in Nepal, where people say a meditating boy hasn't eaten or drunk in seven months. He barely moves, just sits under a tree, still as a stone. It's impossible, some say. Is it a miracle? A hoax? Let's find out.

In 1975, the grisly double murder of a 24-year-old woman and her young daughter turned a small Colorado town on its head. For the two inexperienced detectives assigned to the case, it was a chance to prove their mettle. But what happens when everyone is suspect and nobody is guilty?

<p> It was the spring of 1987, and crack cocaine had turned whole swaths of Detroit into veritable&nbsp;combat zones. The city thought it had seen everything&mdash;until one evening that May, when the&nbsp;police arrested a 17-year-old kid named Rick Wershe.</p> <p> They called him White Boy Rick. In a city known for its fraught racial divide, Wershe had somehow&nbsp;joined&nbsp;the ranks of&nbsp;the drug kingpins on the predominantly black East Side&nbsp;before he was old enough to shave. He flew in kilos of cocaine from Miami and drove a white&nbsp;Jeep with THE SNOWMAN emblazoned across the back. An incredulous judge once compared&nbsp;him to the gangster &ldquo;Baby Face&rdquo; Nelson. He seemed more an urban legend than a real person&mdash;and then his story got even stranger. Years later, while he was in prison for cocaine possession, Wershe claimed he had been working with the FBI since he was 14.&nbsp;Was one of Detroit&rsquo;s most notorious&nbsp;criminals also one of the feds&rsquo; most valuable informants in the city?</p> <p> Journalist Evan Hughes set out to untangle fact from fiction in Wershe&rsquo;s improbable story,&nbsp;tracking down the dealers, cops, and federal agents who shared the streets with him and&nbsp;eventually meeting Wershe himself at the rural Michigan prison where he remains incarcerated. <em>The Trials of White Boy Rick</em> is a gripping true-crime saga of hidden motives and betrayed&nbsp;trust&mdash;and reveals never-before-reported information suggesting why Wershe is still behind&nbsp;bars.</p> <p> September 2014</p>

<p data-atavist-id="at53e12e91f03ae"> It's 6:20pm. The field drifts up towards us slowly and noiselessly. Twisting the burner toggle one last time, Sir Richard Branson looks back over his shoulder, grinning his famous grin. &quot;Bend your knees,&quot; he says cheerily, &quot;in case I fuck this up.&quot;<br /> &nbsp;</p> <p data-atavist-id="at53e12e91f04ad"> Suddenly, the tiny wicker basket clatters into a 5ft-deep sea of crops and pitches over on to its side at an alarming angle. The air is filled with the smell of fresh runner beans, and there is a bump as we finally find the earth. The balloon is caught for a silent second by the chaos of broken vegetation. And then, as suddenly as it arrived, the balloon bounces free again, and, picked up by the wind, drifts away over Oxfordshire.&nbsp;</p>